Europe Needs Energy

 Is Europe being held to ransom by Trump and Putin?

Not long ago when Trump was mucking about with his Tariffs, I was of the mind that we, as in Europe, should just try stalling for a bit. 3 years later we would have a new President and we could start afresh with a sane human being as the head of the "Free world".

Trump has been a monumental disruptor on the world stage. I would take the view that currently he is more dangerous than the Russian Empire. Putin's current focus is not on world domination just dominating the bits he can reach...for now. 

Trump in the meanwhile has alienated his country from everyone who used to call them friends. He has pissed off all his allies bar none. Either buy trying to destabilise their economies with tariffs or by starting wars he cannot finish and getting antsy when no one rushes to join in. 

This is what you get when you treat your "Allies" in such ways. He is clearly bonkers. 

Currently the problem for Europe is that with a friend like the USA it is not in need of any enemies. Europe had to go to the US for its energy shortfall after edging out Russia. The USA has now embarked on a mission that could only lead to energy price hikes. I cannot believe that there wasn't one voice in the Trump administration that didn't tell him it would be so. Yet he piled in anyway. Thanks mate!

This leaves Europe at something of a crossroads. 

First a quick history lesson. Read any history books and you can see that since the fall of the Roman Empire all Europe has done is invade each other, migrate with careless abandon and persecute random groups but mostly the Jewish communities. Yes all of Europe has had a poke at Judaism. Never mind the 20th century, pogroms in the 19th century all the way back to Richard 1 (lionheart fame) who borrowed a heap of money from Jewish moneylenders so he could march on the holy land and then expelled them all from the country so that he didn't have to pay them back.

This all culminated in World War 2 and at the end of that those that had power to change these things decided that Europe was its own worst enemy and never shall it be powerful enough to send the world screaming into oblivion. The E.U. as it is now known was kind of set up to make sure no one got the upper hand politically on one of it's neighbours. All this peace has led to a good level of prosperity since 1945. 

Europe is currently finding that no matter who it chooses to be friends with, these friends just want Europe's money so that they can follow their own nefarious plans. So it is not unreasonable for Europe, therefore, to try and find ways of being more independent. On an energy front at least. Europe has oil and gas potential it can look to but Europe was kind of hoping to back away from fossil fuels. So it could take a retro grade step on the whole net zero thing and drill out some more "black gold"

I think this is kind of what Trump is hoping - largely so that American Oil companies can benefit.

Europe could get a whole lot more belligerant militarily. By forming some sort of gun boat diplomacy to help protect its supply lines. This is how the old European empires got built in the first place. So Trump is now pushing us back 200 years.

An alternative - long term at best, is to go hell for leather on sustainability. Apart from re invading the middle east and recreating the British Empire Europe is going to find itself at the sharp end of energy crises so it should look to distance itself from energy supplied from outside The EU. I am not in favour of re igniting our European oil and gas deposits. Much better we look to the long term future and remove our need for these resources. They will run short one day why not now?